‘Westworld’ Season 2 Starts Filming This Month; First New Cast Member Revealed

Season 2 may not arrive until next year but all aboard, folks, because the Westworld hype train is already picking up steam. Lisa Joy and Jonathan Nolan‘s breakout hit HBO series is set to make its Comic-Con debut in San Diego later this month, the official website started dropping new breadcrumbs, and now, a few weeks after series star Evan Rachel Wood dropped some social media hints, Westworld is officially gearing up to roll into production on Season 2.

Per EW, Westworld’s second season will begin filming this month (will it be in time to have any new footage to show at Comic-Con? The odds are not likely). The filming update also comes with the news that Katja Herbers is joining the cast as a series regular. Herbers appears to be on a mission to pop up in all the best shows on TV, and has recently been seen on The Leftovers, The Americans, and the exceptional but tragically short-lived series, Manhattan.

Image via WGN

Herbers will play Grace, “a seasoned guest in Westworld whose latest visit comes at the park’s darkest hour.” So it sounds like she might be a human caught in the middle of Ford’s final narrative, Journey Into Night, aka violent, bloody robot rebellion. Or maybe she’s really a host. Honestly, who the heck knows on this show. (We got one line of casting news and my theory wheels are already spinning, but such is the nature of Westworld.)

Herbers is the first new addition to the cast, who has earned heaps of critical acclaim after the first season, including a few frontrunner for this week’s Emmy nominations. She is the third new series regular after Louis Hertham (the host we first met as Dolores’ Shakespeare-quoting father Peter Abernathy) and Tallulah Riley (the host we first met as Angela) were bumped up to series regulars after the first season. Details on the rest of the returning cast are still under wraps.

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